What Is A Public Service Announcement? A Public Service Announcement (PSA) is a free commercial for a non-profit organization. It is aired voluntary by individual radio and/or TV stations. Choose a topic from the list to develop a P.S.A. The P.S.A. needs to be 20 to 30 seconds long. You must be able to answer the following questions You must use: Who is the audience being addressed or talked to (age, sex, demographic profile, interest) What is this audience being asked to do (advertiser contact: call, store or web visit, or increased brand awareness.) Why should this audience do it. (the audience reward.) a background tune at least 2 sound effects that help the P.S.A. covey its message a script that is written by you. Reading tips: Read the copy several times before recording. If you have created 30 solid seconds of copy without a break, you're going to need all the help you can get. Timing is critical. Read the copy at a natural pace first while you time yourself with a stopwatch. Do this several times. If the timing is very close you can easily shave a second or two off the reading time by speaking just a little faster. If you are consistently coming up 2 or more seconds over your time, then you'll have to do some editing of the copy. You'll want to project friendliness and enthusiasm in your performance, but not in a gameshow host mode. Smile as you read the copy- the audience will pick up on that sort of thing. You're trying to tell the listener something you feel they ought to know, so work on your own enthusiasm level while reading. You've got a great service to offer, or the best deal anyone has ever offered on a product. You're so excited about it that you had to get on the radio and talk about it. That's the level of enthusiasm you're aiming for. Select the music bed that will accent your spot well. Music beds are those snippets of music that accompany many radio spots. You'll want to listen to several of them while at the studio, so you can have some input into the final selection. You'll want to match the mood of the music to the mood of your spot. A funeral home director may choose more somber and subdued music, while a furniture store offering a sale may choose a John Philips Sousa sound. Businesses geared towards a younger audience may choose an upbeat rock sound, while others may choose a more subtle or generic sound. A good music bed will enhance your own performance. Choose carefully.
Writing tips. How Do I Start? You start with the goal of the PSA: What do you want it to accomplish? Once you know the goal, then you can figure out how the PSA can achieve it. What Is The Goal of a PSA? The goal of a PSA is simple: To get someone to take a specific action. It s not to talk about the sponsoring organization. It s to motivate the targeted audience to act: To drop off the canned goods for the food drive. To make sure their children s seat belts are buckled. To stay in school...to stop smoking...to avoid abusing drugs. Use Emotion. People act based on emotional reasons. They might rationalize their actions with logic. But they re motivated by emotions. Can you think of a movie that you really, really wanted to see? If so, undoubtedly your desire was emotional: You heard it was funny or scary or suspenseful. You didn t analyze all of your movie options, draw up a list of pro s and con s for each, and then acting solely on logic select the one film that seemed to be the most rational choice. Facts don t sell. (Note: By sell, we mean motivate a person to act. ) Emotions sell. Let s add some emotion to the PSA we ve already started: Tonight, many of Smallville s children will go to bed hungry. Unless you help. Make It Personally Relatable. A PSA is nothing more than a conversation with the audience. Make your message personal to them; make it easy for them to relate to: Have you ever been hungry? Not because you re on a diet or you didn t have time to eat breakfast, but because you don t have enough money to buy food? Can you imagine what it s like for a child to go to bed hungry every night? Unfortunately, that s not an imaginary situation for 13,000 children in Smallville. At the Smallville Homeless Shelter, we know you d like to help. That s why we ve made it easy for you to drop off your canned goods at any XYZ Store, all this month. Please take a look at your shelves and see what you can afford to donate. There s a child in our community who will go to bed hungry tonight...unless you help.
Identify The Organization. The sponsoring organization must be identified within the PSA. If you reread the PSA we just wrote, you ll how how easy it is to smoothly blend in the organization s name with the message. Deliver Exactly One Core Message The core message is the one thing you want the audience to hear, to understand, and to remember. Many PSAs (and many commercials) make the mistake of trying to get the audience to do more than one thing. A PSA can ask people to donate food. Or money. Or time. But it shouldn t ask for all three. One message. And to deliver that message effectively, you must do so with... Clarity You know what your PSA is about, because you re the one who created it. But the audience doesn t have the advantage of your inside knowledge. The audience needs to be able to understand the message the first time it airs. So in addition to making sure you have just one Core Message, you also must make it very clear. It s your job to communicate. It s not the audience s job to figure out what you really mean. MUSIC All commercials and PSAs should have music underneath them, right? Wrong. Use music only when it enhances the impact of the message. Some people automatically put a music bed underneath an announcer s voice to make it more interesting. Think of a glass of soda that has gone flat all the carbonation has disappeared. Putting music under a boring message doesn t make it interesting...any more than pouring flat soda into a fancier glass makes it taste better. Sound Effects Sound effects are fun. And dangerous. Every sound effect you use will stimulate a picture in your audience s mind. Example: A PSA that encourages people not to overspend on their credit card accounts. To illustrate the point of not spending extra money, the sound effect of a cash register ringing is used. The audience pictures a cash register. But does picturing a cash register do anything to encourage people to use their credit cards responsibly? (On the other hand, getting them to picture their savings accounts growing larger...or to picture being able to answer the phone without
worrying that it s a creditor demanding money...could be effective.) Please, don t use sound effects just because they re fun to use. As with music, use them only if they increase the impact of the message you re trying to communicate. How Long Should It Be? Usually the length of your PSA is determined by the broadcast station that might air yet. Most often, it s either 30 seconds or 60 seconds. Who Is The PSA For, Anyway? A good public service announcement is for the good of the community. For it to do good for the community, your PSA must: Attract the attention of your target audience Speak to the audience in their own language Relate to the audience s lives Deliver a single core message Deliver the message with clarity Motivate the audience to act. And before it can do all that, it must accomplish one other goal: Get played on the TV or radio station! It s not enough to say, Please play this PSA because it s very important to us. You must be able to say, You should play this PSA because it s very important to your audience and to your community.
Topics to consider: Child Abuse Water Pollution Air Pollution Trash Noise Pollution Recycling Healthy Eating Dangers of Smoking Alcohol Use Drug Use Abusive Boyfriends Abusive Girlfriends Music-in-Our-Schools Month Art Appreciation Month Volunteering Good Money Management National Etiquette Week Renewable Energy Being A Vegetarian Safe Hunting About Getting a Good Education Good Hygiene People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals Vocational Agriculture Domestic Violence Boy s and Girl s Clubs of America Good Sportsmanship Memorial Day Remembrance Veteran s Day Remembrance Mother s Day Father s Day Bullying Wildlife Preservation Adopt-A-Pet Forest Fire Prevention Childhood Obesity Becoming Physically Fit